


The Jacket

by allp_wips



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-07-08 05:56:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19864618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allp_wips/pseuds/allp_wips
Summary: Alex gives Astra her jacket.





	The Jacket

The day they stave off a Dominator invasion of Earth, is the day Alex gives her jacket to Astra.

Well, she doesn't give it to her, not exactly.

What actually happens is that, the final fight with the Dominators leaves all of them exhausted in one way or another, with even the Kryptonians having blown out their powers. At the end of it, when agent after agent straggles back into the DEO, Alex knows that they're coming back for more than just a final debriefing. Most of them don't have much in the way of families to get back to; the DEO is the kind of workplace that attracts and retains a certain kind of person.

So she rents out M'gann's bar for the night, and their celebrations go deep into the early morning hours, humans and aliens alike celebrating the aversion of yet another disaster. By the end of it, even Kara is drunk, and Alex is more than a little buzzed herself. Not enough to not realize that Astra has gone missing sometime after midnight, though.

She finds her after a short walk outside, curled up on one of the large stones in the nearby park. Alex circles the seemingly asleep figure with a certain bit of wariness, albeit tinged with understanding. She knows Astra doesn't really enjoy these gatherings, and mostly tags along for the look of it. Something about a large amount of people grouped together into a confined space seems to set the woman off, despite her usual lack of awareness about personal space.

If she's being honest, though, Alex kind of understands it. Sometimes, after a long missions, she doesn't even want to talk to Kara. She just wants to go for a long drive to clear her head, or go home and crash on her couch. Something that she has less of a chance to do after making Director, on account having to set an example for the people she supervises.

There's something specifically about the sight of Astra passed out on the slightly damp stone, though, that tugs at Alex. Maybe it's that she's rarely seen her like this. In the DEO, where they most often interact, Astra is every inch the composed strategist. Even at the many get-togethers that Kara plans, there's an aloofness to her. Alex hasn't ever seen her let her guard down in a public space like this, and it probably says something about how far they've come, and how far  _ Astra  _ has come.

While she watches, Astra shifts. Alex tenses, thinking she might be waking up, but Astra just curls up into a tighter ball. It really  _ is _ a pretty cold night for National City, Alex realizes, with the fall in full swing.

She has shrugged her jacket off before she registers what she's doing. She drapes it over Astra before she can second-guess it. The woman slightly stirs as the jacket makes contact with her. Immediately, Alex turns back around through the trees, and hotfoots it back to the party.

If her friends notice the lack of a jacket on her when she returns, they don't comment on it. If her face feels a little warm for the rest of the night, Alex tells herself it's probably the alcohol, nothing more.

\---

Alex doesn't see the jacket again until weeks later, when Astra appears at game night with it. It makes her do a double-take, because Astra's approach to Earth fashion is... well, unique. It's certainly never included anything as commonplace as a leather jacket, until now.

That doesn't change the fact that she looks better in it than Alex would ever admit, even under extended torture. Astra doesn't even take part in the game, electing instead to recline on the armchair and flip through one of the magazines she seems inexplicably fascinated by, but Alex still can't help looking up from the game board to sneak glances at her every few minutes. She's just keeping an eye on her jacket, is all. A good leather jacket isn't easy to come by, after all.

It's after the game and dinner, when she's won a tug of war with Lucy over the TV remote, that Alex turns idly to Astra in the middle of flipping through the movie selection, and broaches the subject.

"So, when am I getting that back?" she asks, pointing at the jacket with the remote.

"Getting it back?" Astra draws the jacket around herself, and raises supercilious eyebrows.

"It's mine!" Alex protests.

A small smile curls up around Astra's mouth. "Not any longer."

"You don't even like jackets," Alex grumbles. "And I'm pretty sure you've lectured every agent in the DEO about wearing leather, if they don't get away from you fast enough. What gives?"

Astra clutches the jacket tighter to her again. "You're not having it back. That's final."

Alex rubs her forehead, and puts the remote down, causing Lucy to immediately pounce on it. She continues her sotto voce argument with Astra, while the rest of her friends are occupied around the television. "Why do you have to be so difficult about the strangest things?"

She doesn't push it, though, when Astra shows no signs of relenting. She  _ had  _ given it to her in a way, Alex tells herself, and it's not like it's her favorite leather jacket or anything. It's not even her fourth favorite one, and she should actually probably do something about her addiction to collecting them at some point.

So, she lets Astra have it, and if it means she has to watch Astra for the rest of the night instead of watching the movie - to keep an eye on the jacket, again, obviously - well, it's not the worst fate in the world.

\---

Astra gives her back the jacket a few months later, after what should have been a routine patrol around National City ends up with Alex injured from going up against a Tameranian riled up on the new drug that Roulette's gang is proliferating around the city.

Alex is stuck in the medical bay after hours, staring up at the ceiling and wondering if she can make a break for it before the formidable Branxian nurse guarding the ward finds out about her escape, when the door opens silently, and a shadow creeps in.

"I knew Barbara scared you too," Alex says, when said shadow resolves itself into Astra, a few inches away from her bedside.

Astra turns up her nose. "Your employees do not scare me."

"Sure, sure," Alex says. "That's why you're creeping around instead of just asking her if you can see me."

Astra strategically chooses to ignore this, and studies Alex instead.

"At least you're not dead," she says, eventually.

Alex rolls her eyes. "You say the nicest things."

"I know nothing I say will stop you from throwing yourself headfirst into danger," Astra says, and there might be regret and anxiety somewhere in that controlled voice, if Alex tries hard enough to dig it out.

"Yeah well," she says, exhaling a tired breath. "Thanks for coming to see me, anyway."

She takes another furtive look around the ward - Barbara the Branxian nurse might technically be Alex's employee, but she rules the med bay with an iron fist - before reaching out to take the giant taco that Astra is silently holding out to her. Alex tries not to let the wrapper crackle too much as she scarfs the taco down, well aware of the strict diet imposed by the med bay on its inmates.

"I have something for you," Astra says, after silently watching Alex eat for a while.

Alex looks up from wiping her hands with the now-empty wrapper. "What?"

Astra reaches into the bag slung around her shoulders, before holding the content of it out. Alex stares at the now-wrinkled leather jacket being handed back to her.

"Seriously?" she asks. "You're giving it back to me after all this time?"

At Astra's nod, she reaches out for it automatically, only to meet with resistance.

"I want it back," Astra says.

"You just said I could have it," Alex says, exasperated.

"I want you to make it smell like you again," Astra says, deliberately. "And then, I want it back."

Alex stares at her. Astra stares back.

"What?" Alex asks. Her voice sounds cracked and hoarse.

"I think that you heard me," Astra says. She looks composed and unmoved, except for the traitorous flush creeping slowly over her face.

They stare at each other again, for some more moments.

"Um," Alex starts. Maybe it's the pain meds that she's on, or maybe it's just the leftover adrenaline from her fight with the Tameranian, but she decides to go all in. "I'd need to see you again, to give it back."

Astra raises her eyebrows. "We see each other every day."

"Outside of the DEO," Alex says, and then hurriedly continues, in case Astra is getting any ideas of weaseling out of this, "And outside or Kara's apartment, or my apartment, or any other place that we usually meet in."

"I'm sure that's essential for the return process," Astra says.

"Mm-hmm."

"Alright." Astra's eyes crinkle, and the lines of her mouth soften into what might be a smile, as she sits by the side of Alex's bed. "You know, it would have been simpler to just ask me to go somewhere with you."

Alex smiles, and then closes her eyes drowsily, but not before her hand finds Astra's, their fingers entangling. "Where's the fun in that?"

\---

**Author's Note:**

> Based on: https://twitter.com/ohmissmills/status/1067976590775238659


End file.
